


My Red

by blue_pointer



Series: Der Freischütz [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Genre: Angst, Art, Bucky's Sisters, Captain America: The First Avenger, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Darts, Drinking, Family History, Hollow - Freeform, London, Love Poems, M/M, Stucky - Freeform, Thriller, Travel, Winifred Barnes - Freeform, World War II, peculiarity, steve rogers - Freeform, stucky apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8468293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_pointer/pseuds/blue_pointer
Summary: Bucky ships out for England and misses Steve almost more than he can bear. Having trouble making friends among his comrades, he turns his talents to public performances. A mysterious stranger arrives to give Bucky a cryptic warning. Something is waiting for him on the deserted streets of London.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Steve isn't physically in this chapter, but Bucky misses him so much, obsesses over him so much, he may as well be.  
> To those reading for the peculiar universe, this is where it starts. To those reading for stucky, you'll enjoy most of this, with a detour into definite crossover territory at the end.

There were a lot of sad good-byes that day. His mom and all three of his sisters saw Bucky off at the terminal. There were so many people; he hoped they all weren’t boarding the same ship he was. All the girls cried. His mom didn’t stop crying from the house all the way to the quay. Katie gave him a giant bag of pastries to last him all the way to England. Becky gave him a folder full of math problems to work on to pass the time. Patti gave him her lucky rabbit’s foot. Saying good-bye to them was almost as bad as saying good-bye to Steve had been.

And then came the fun part. It seemed like all the guys on the docks WERE boarding the same ship as Bucky. It was so damned crowded. There wasn’t even elbow room on deck, but that’s where everyone was; at least for the first half hour.

Bucky’s heart was heavy as he watched Brooklyn fade into the distance. He felt like he was being pulled away, ripped apart, torn from everything and everyone he loved. But that was silly. He’d signed up for this. That day, he climbed into his bunk and cried for half an hour straight.

Then came the seasickness. Bucky had never been on a boat for longer than it took to get to Staten Island. He wasn’t the only one puking his guts out every ten minutes, but that didn’t make it any better.

Stuck on the ship together for days, many of the soldiers started to make friends. Bucky didn’t want to. He wanted to be alone. He wanted Steve. When he wasn’t sick to his stomach, Bucky took out the sketchbook Steve had given him as a going away present. It was packed with random drawings: a tin can in the street, an old lady with grocery bags waiting at the bus stop, all the little sketches Steve usually threw away. Bucky had asked a long time ago that he just give those sketches to him instead of tossing them in the trash. And here was a whole book full of them. It made Bucky feel warm, to see the world through Steve’s eyes...like they were still together. As he paged through, careful not to lose any of the sketches, a page of script fell out.

Bucky’s eyes started to sting again. Steve had written out _My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose_ and put it in with the drawings. Sure, it was Scottish and not Irish, but that was part of why.

Steve liked to tease Bucky that he wasn’t really Irish because his MacAlasdair ancestors had only come over from Scotland on the invitation of clan McDonell. Then a bunch had stayed and eventually become McAllister, which was Bucky’s mom. The Buchanans, too...that was his father’s side. But no one talked of Buchanans in Scotland or Ireland. Buchanan wasn’t a good name to have. Not since the war for Independence, when one of Bucky’s ancestors had betrayed William Wallace to Edward I. The McAllisters were much better respected.

Of course, Bucky never took that lying down. He would say just because Steve was an O’Neill--through his mam, of course--descended from Niall _Noígíallach_ , he thought he was a little Irish prince, and could decide who was and wasn’t “really” Irish. At which point a wrestling match would usually ensue, which--after they’d hit puberty, anyway--would often lead to other physical exertions.

Bucky closed his eyes, remembering. _Don’t be sad_ , he told himself over and over. _Don’t be sad; remember and be happy._

Then there was the choice of colour. Red wasn’t a colour Steve could see--at least not the way most people saw it. The colour he saw instead--it merged into green in a way Steve couldn’t differentiate without help--he called it ‘gred.’ But the real colour red, that vibrant shade Bucky tried over and over to describe to Steve...it was a colour his artist’s heart could only dream of. He’d told Bucky once that he was his red. “Only it’s a colour nobody but me can see.”

“I don’t get it, Stevie.” They’d been lying together on the roof. Summers in Brooklyn were often too hot to sleep inside.

“You’re my red, Buck, cuz to me, you’re the most beautiful colour of all. Only no one can see your true colour but me. And so it’s like how everybody can see the real red, only I can’t. But only I can see you how you are...all of you...the real you. And you’re mine. An’ I love you the most. So...you’re my red.”

One of Bucky’s tears fell onto the page, and he hurriedly wiped it off before it could smudge the ink. _Oh, Stevie._

Then there was the song that went with the poem, that Steve would make Bucky sing to him sometimes when they were alone. But Bucky didn’t feel like singing right now. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel like singing again.

Some guys the next bunk down started laughing. They’d been playing poker, and getting more and more rowdy. Fortunately, Bucky had perfected the art of pretty-crying years ago. And one of many advantages of pretty-crying was that you didn’t really look like you’d been crying, even when you were in the middle of bawling your eyes out. You just sort of looked...like your eyes were bloodshot and your cheeks were a little more rosy than usual. Bucky scrubbed at his cheeks, hoping he was getting all of the crying out of his system on the ship. Once he was in the war for real, commanding his own fire team, there would be no time for tears.

But when they finally got to Southampton, Bucky’s orders weren’t to go straight to the continent--and he was glad for that. They were to do more training on one of the local American bases. Most of the other soldiers took it as a respite, and enjoyed their time before going to the front wooing the local women, drinking, gambling, dancing, and of course, whoring.

Bucky had a surprisingly difficult time fitting in. In the Heights, he’d been a big fish in a small pond. Everyone had known Bucky, and he’d held a certain status in the local community, part youth, part legend. Here, no one knew him. His fellow U.S. soldiers, even the ones from New York, were total strangers to him, and treated him as such. 

It had been a long time since Bucky had left the neighborhood without Steve. Steve, his own personal cheerleader and Jack Russell Terrier guard dog. If they were at Rockaway Beach and some guy called Bucky a name, Steve was there, fisticuffs a-blazing, telling Bucky what bullshit that was. He’d forgotten--it was so stupid--but he’d forgotten how much other guys--guys who weren’t Steve--hated him.

It had always been hard for Bucky to make male friends. For whatever reason, whether it was that they felt threatened by his looks, or uncomfortable with their own reactions to his looks, most guys could not stand him. It made things hard. Everyone back home had thought Bucky was the one who’d chosen to be Steve’s friend. That it was his compassion, his generosity that had given the sickly boy a companion that he, as a person who would certainly have been eliminated by natural selection outside of first world civilization, did not deserve. The truth was, Steve had been Bucky’s friend when no other guy would. Nothing proved the theory better than what was happening now.

The night they got to London after the transatlantic voyage from hell and a grueling train ride from Southampton, all Bucky wanted to do was sleep. But even that he apparently couldn’t do without losing potential friends and alienating people. The first night in his cot at the temporary base in London, Bucky had the worst nightmare. Steve was locked in a coffin, and he was screaming and screaming, like something was happening to him in there, like someone was hurting him, and Bucky couldn’t get him out. He reached for the lid to break it open, but his hands passed right through it. It was like he was the one who was dead, the ghost, even though Steve was the one inside the coffin.

That was Bucky’s worst nightmare: that Steve was in trouble and he couldn’t get to him. That night he woke the entire hall shouting and sobbing in his sleep. There was no way any of the guys were going to take a chance befriending him after that. That was how Bucky earned the nickname ‘cry-baby’.

He was a firm believer in the adage about sticks and stones, but it got real lonely after that. Bucky lost all hope of making friends among the men in the company. It didn’t help that he missed Steve with a burning passion that seemed to have seared out his insides. When the other men went out to the red light district, the one team-building activity he might have taken part in, Bucky declined. It was like he’d left his libido behind in New York. Much as he enjoyed sex with women, he just couldn’t stomach the idea of putting it in one right now. It didn’t appeal as something that would make him feel better. And he missed Steve so much as it was--he felt any kind of sexual contact would only remind him of what he was missing.

Drinking, though. That was something that was in Bucky’s genes. He could go to the pubs frequented by the other G.I.s and knock back a fifth of whiskey with the best of them. Followed by a pint or four. Drinking seemed to be a national sport in England. And when Bucky was drunk enough, the British girls, all of the hangers-on who chased the American boys in uniform for their paychecks and generous spending habits, looked a lot more attractive. He could forget how much he was missing Steve and do a good deal of sloppy making out before they realized he wasn’t going to spend more money on them than a few drinks.

It was a way to pass the time. In short order, the other G.I.s stopped seeing him as a threat, because--although the women would always approach Bucky first out of any given group of soldiers--they would inevitably give up on him for lack of funds combined with his inability to perform. The only thing he really could do was dance, and even that wasn’t so great when he was drunk.

One thing Bucky seemed capable of doing drunk or sober, depressed or even-keeled, was hit a damn target. When it reached the predictable point in the night at the pub on any given day, and the available women were paired off with the men who were game, Bucky would content himself with playing darts. No one noticed at first. But then he broke a set by hitting the dead center of the bullseye with each and every one. After paying for a new set of darts for the pub, other soldiers started placing bets on his ability to throw the darts at different levels of inebriation. Bucky could always do it, though no one seemed to believe he could until he proved it.

Once accuracy was proved, different people would start calling out trick shots. Bucky could do those, too. The bartender started giving him free drinks because he was drawing a crowd every night. The nickname ‘cry-baby’ finally went away, to be replaced by ‘Sure-shot’. Maybe it was an Annie Oakley reference, but Bucky took it gladly.

It was on one such night, not far from the height of his popularity, when he was not particularly drunk, that a strange young man appeared. He was just a kid, Bucky noted. A sailor, and those weren’t too common in London at the time. Like Bucky, he wasn’t drawing any of the local women; in fact, he didn’t seem interested in them at all. What did seem to interest him was Bucky’s dart-throwing. Or maybe it was Bucky himself.

Oh, it wasn’t the first time he’d been approached by a guy who spotted in him a kind of bird of a feather. But Bucky had been careful to blow off all such male advances in the past, and he planned to do the same with this kid. Besides, he couldn’t be a month over 18.

Sure enough, the kid began to sidle up to the bar, and slowly work his way toward Bucky’s spot. He steeled himself for the confrontation, planning what he would say, how he would say it so as not to hurt the kid’s feelings but also not to call him out and get him killed in the alley once he left the bar alone.

And in less than half an hour, there he was, standing at Bucky’s elbow, looking at him with big blue eyes. God, someone had to look out for this kid. He was just asking for trouble.

He waited for a break in the darts, when the attention of Bucky’s audience was elsewhere. Then he leaned forward, and said, his voice low, “You’re peculiar.”

Bucky had not been expecting that. “Uh…” He just stared at the kid. Was that what they called it over here? Well, maybe it was. So he started to apply his rehearsed answer. “Listen, kid, you got me mixed up with somebody else.”

“You’ve been using your peculiarity,” the boy whispered urgently. “A lot. It’s not safe.”

Bucky honestly hadn’t thought he was this drunk. But the kid was making no sense. “Sure, kid. Whatever you say.” He started to pack it in for the night. Weird kids whispering coded messages that didn’t make any sense were his cue to get back to his bunk.  

“Please, you have to listen to me.” Was he following Bucky? People were starting to notice the kid’s distress. “I tracked one to this area. You shouldn’t go out there alone.”

Oh, so that was his deal. He figured he was going to “walk Bucky home” and maybe play a little blow-and-go on the way? Bucky stopped at the door and turned to look at him. “Look, I’m sure you’re a sweet kid, but like I said: you got me all wrong. I don’t need an escort home.”

The kid looked no less anxious. Jeez, it was like he was really worried for Bucky or somethin. Shaking his head, Bucky ducked outside into the pervasive London fog. He’d always thought that expression was metaphorical. Boy had he been wrong. He turned up his collar against the chill and shoved his hands as deep as they would go into his pockets before heading for the main street.

It was force of habit that made him look down the alley way. But he’d heard a noise. And Bucky had been rescuing Steve from getting beaten to a pulp in the back alleys of Brooklyn for almost as long as he could remember. The fact Steve was thousands of miles away didn’t register at first. “Hello?” A stray cat literally went flying past him, and Bucky started to wonder if this had been such a good idea. Because he was pretty sure cats couldn’t fly in England any more than they could in New York.

He turned around to see the cat injured somehow, struggling to get up in the middle of the street. Bucky was running out to grab it before a car came, instinctively, when it saw him and managed to scrabble away for dear life with only two or three of its legs working right. “What the hell?” There was a clatter of garbage cans from behind him, and Bucky looked back down the alley to see bins getting knocked over like bowling pins, starting at the back and moving forward toward him.

He didn’t need to be told; he ran. There was something to be said for gut instinct, and Bucky’s was telling him to get the fuck away from whatever was coming out of that alley. The fact he couldn’t see it and had absolutely no reason to think he was in danger didn’t even figure in. It was Brooklyn street rules: you felt like things were going south, you got the hell out.

Unfortunately, London wasn’t Bucky’s city, and the instinct that had served him well over-all didn’t serve him very well directionally. What he should have done was run back to the bar and get where the crowd was. Instead, he ran down a row of shops that were all long-closed, and stumbled into a block that had taken a hit from German bombers. It was charred and desolate, with not another soul to be seen.

Knowing that was bad, Bucky stopped, trying to get his bearings, to make a plan before running wildly into an even shadier area. That’s when it grabbed him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Der Freischutz Series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15002654) by [Night (Night_Inscriber)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_Inscriber/pseuds/Night)




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